The effect of expectations - blog 2

The primary lesson of the chapter 9 from Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely is that the expectations, stereotypes and beliefs we can have, and in fact, do have, affect every aspect of our lives. What the article is trying to show us is that every decision we take in our daily life is utterly influenced by something irrational that makes us behaving in that way and not in other one. This “something irrational” is beliefs that our brain has created throughout our life affected by our environment, country, society, politics, or even family or friends. And the outcome of all of this is what finally builds ourselves and defines our attitudes.

Referring to what a marketer should do if he wanted to gain valuable insights or design valuable experiences for customers I would like to raise something remarked in the text: Is it true that “When we believe beforehand that something will be good it generally will be good”? Or, rather, if this is true could a marketer change this? From my point of view, the preconceived idea a customer can have of a company, a product or even a brand is really difficult to change but it also depends on the situation of the company or the product in the marketplace. It is obvious that the image that a popular brand has in the marketplace (as the example of the article with Coke) is a clear advantage for the future products that this company will want to launch. However, the marketers have to think themselves which the position they want to reach is and which perceptions of their products they want the customers to receive. From this point, work on a research and find out the barriers, in terms of expectations or beforehand beliefs, could damage the message, idea or image they want to give to the customers. And obviously, try to overcome them, but here is the key, how to get to know these expectations is not an easy deal.

The experiment that Ariely uses to demonstrate how influential our held impressions are in all the decisions we take was based in giving students the opportunity of taste two different types of beer. One of them was a popular brand (Budweiser) and the other one an unknown brew they made, with two drops of balsamic vinegar for each ounce of beer. The result of the experiment was that without foreknowledge about vinegar, most of them chose the unknown beer, while when they knew about the vinegar in advance, they chose the Budweiser. So here is a demonstration of how far can our expectations lead us to change our “real” tastes or preferences.

About my experience, it occurred here in Austin with a movie of Quentin Tarantino. I had never watched Pulp Fiction because I did not like other films Tarantino has directed, so despite being so popular I was unwilling to watch it. However, some weeks ago, my roommates were watching the TV and I decided to join them, without knowing it was the movie I hated! They lied to me just because they knew I would complain about it. Surprisingly, I really liked it. But what would have happened if I had been conscious of the film I was watching? Probably, I would not have liked it as much as I did, or blindly wouldn’t have thought that I like it. This fact reaffirms the theory defended in the article; some expectations created by our own brains can really change our enjoyment.